Energy

A federal judge on Friday denied the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s request to halt construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. But the U.S. Departments of Justice, the Army and the Interior temporarily halted construction of the project.

The Army will not authorize pipeline construction on Corps of Engineers land bordering or under Lake Oahe in South Dakota until it can determine if it needs to reconsider past decisions. The three departments also asked the pipeline company to stop construction on other lands.

Meanwhile, some St. Louis officials and activists are banding together to show solidarity with the tribe.

The $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline is set to be built on a 1,172 mile diagonal from the Bakken/Three Forks formations in North Dakota down to Patoka, Ill., about 75 miles east ofSt. Louis. The pipeline would cross under the Missouri River in two locations. That has people in St. Louis concerned about local water quality.

While the typical American may be considering how to use alternative fuel in the form of an electric car or investing in a “smart home” system, big industry is also looking for ways to reduce CO2 emissions through the use of alternative biofuels.

It’s not only that coal-burning companies Ameren Missouri, Peabody Energy, and Arch Coal are headquartered in St. Louis, or that statewide battles have been waged over coal burning and the storing of ash.

There’s no shortage of incentive programs to install energy-efficient appliances and fixtures in Missouri, but a new report shows that affordable, multi-family housing units are often left out of the mix.

According to the paper from the National Resources Defense Council, only 30 percent of households in those buildings within Ameren Missouri and Ameren Illinois' service areas are participating in energy efficiency programs. Energy costs can disproportionately impact low-income families, who spend nearly 14 percent of their annual income on utilities, according to the Missouri Department of Energy.

A local environmental group is asking state regulators to deny Ameren’s request to build a new coal ash landfill next to its Labadie power plant in Franklin County, on the basis that the landfill would not comply with new federal regulations.

Filling up your gas tank is almost pleasant as prices at the pump continue to fall. In St. Louis on Monday, a gallon of gas averaged $2.22, but it could be found for as low as $2.07.

While the entire country is seeing lower gas prices, Missouri has averaged the lowest. The American Automobile Association listed the state’s average as $2.25 a gallon on Monday. Meanwhile the average in Illinois was $2.57; in California it was $2.87 and a whopping $2.98 in New York.

When it comes to energy, U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt says that the federal government has taken the wrong approach for years.

“The refusal to acknowledge that we’re the Saudi Arabia of coal is a big mistake for us,” Blunt, R-Mo., told St. Charles County officials and business people gathered Thursday night at the St. Charles Chamber of Commerce.

About 50 activists delivered a petition to the St. Louis Board of Elections on Wednesday, calling for the city to cut tax breaks from businesses involved in what they call “unsustainable energy production.”

The group marched with signs that said “Take Back St. Louis" and chanted things like "We will stand, we will fight, a greener city is our right!"

The petition was organized by Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE), and the group’s leaders say they have more than 36,000 signatures, which is well above the requirement for a ballot initiative.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: November 19, 2008 - In his 1979 "malaise" speech, Jimmy Carter spoke to a nation facing multiple economic challenges and a debilitating energy crisis. But his focus on problems "more serious than energy or inflation" transcended immediate events.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: October 16, 2008 - If you're searching for a bright spot amid the recent series of economic shocks -- nest eggs cracked, jobs lost, budgets busted, energy costs at painful levels -- proponents of Proposition C on the Nov. 4 ballot think they have an answer.

​This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: August 25, 2008 - Ameren UE's pursuit of a second nuclear power plant should be viewed by environmentalist opponents as a challenge and an opportunity. To see why, let's start with a menu of pro and con arguments.

This article first appeared in the St.Louis Beacon: July 23, 2008- Quotations by starkly different commentators offer starkly different assessments of the common wisdom. "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public" is a wry observation by the famously sardonic H.L. Mencken, the pre-eminent American journalist of the early 20th Century.